


I-80 East

by j_marquis



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Alcohol, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Broken people finding love, Headcanon backstory for Reno, M/M, my favorite thing to write
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-27
Updated: 2018-07-26
Packaged: 2019-06-17 00:05:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15448857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/j_marquis/pseuds/j_marquis
Summary: Reno had a twin. Past tense. Had. Now all he has is a new partner and a hangover.





	I-80 East

_This isn't happening_

Sometimes his memories got all jumbled up, like someone had thrown them in a bag and shaken them all up. He'd walk into the kitchen expecting to see his own face staring back at him, offering him coffee or an open jug of orange juice with his grin. His scars and tattoos. His wild red hair, his freckles, it felt like Reno's entire left half was missing. He'd been split.

Sometimes he was still running through the slums, screaming into the Shinra issued PHS that he needed backup, he needed backup, his partner was, well, his partner was in pieces in the dirt. Blood, so much blood, viscera, shatters where bones had been wretched apart.

_Happening-_

He couldn't focus, everything felt wrong, every light too bright every step every movement made the whole world waver.

_Happening-_

The other Turks never knew what to say. After all, what do you say to a person when their whole life is falling apart before their eyes, when a half of them has been ripped out and they sit, soulless and heartless, in a half empty apartment drinking his life away. He'd be assigned a new partner, they told him, this happens.

Missions go bad.

_Happening-_

There was nothing you could have done.

"It was me!" He wanted to scream, "It was me who died out there." But he said nothing, and he poured another drink.

Sometimes he was still running through the slums, laughing and an identical face laughed with him and they counted freckles. Vegas had one more on his arm, high up his shoulder, and sometimes Reno would draw a little freckle in brown marker so he matched. They would build towers of scrap and find treasures and steal food when they were hungry, the tiny scrap boys. Bright like the sun and reaching for the skies and jumping off of their creations like one day they would fly. Fly right up to the plates and see the sky.

_Happening-_

Fixing each other's ties so even the wrinkles matched.

One pressing a burn into the other's skin so they were the same again. The first tattoo was to make their freckles equal. Two pairs of the same eyes, crooked grins when they were tasked with enforcing something violent. Once, the Director joked he could only tell them apart by the bloodstains after a mission. Another time he chastised them for attempting to fool the SOLDIER unit into thinking they were one person who could teleport.

_Happening-_

Sometimes he didn't know which one had died, which one he was. The kitchen was empty, and so he poured himself another drink.

Another partner, they told him at headquarters, they were sending him another partner. And they would fill the empty room because the Director said it was good for partners to share the Shinra-provided apartments. Something about his old partner, someone who had gone missing.

At least when they were missing, they weren't in so many pieces spattered across the floor where Reno couldn't count the freckles anymore and Vegas couldn't see the sky and they were never going to fly.

Another partner, who would mind the mess and the empty liquor bottles and the stifling closed windows and drawn curtains. Who would mind when Reno didn't know which one he was and who was in the kitchen and who screamed which names in the middle of the nights when the nightmares got so, so bad.

_It is._

-

His new partner did not do him the dignity of knocking.

He let himself in. And he stared at Reno and Reno stared back and he didn't even realize he had thrown the glass at him until he dodged, and the glass shattered against the wall.

"Some kind of a hello."

"Oh. You're real."

"Rude, been assigned to you."

"Yeah, big bosses said something about a new partner. Now kindly fuck off."

His new partner nodded, and entered the apartment anyway. Looked around, pulled the curtains open and he let the sky in. Reno hated him. He wasn't supposed to see the sky. Not without the other half, the beating heart he had watched sputter and stop. But there it was, streaming into the apartment, a cold reminder.

"Wait. 'Rude a name of an accusation?"

"Both." His new partner lit a cigarette and he watched the glint of his earrings, the way the windows and his dark glasses made reflections on reflections on reflections like a hall of mirrors. And Reno wanted to hate him, it would be so easy.

But he knew what he looked like, he had seen himself, and he knew he hadn't washed and he hadn't cleaned and he drank too much and smoked too much and Rude (the name and the accusation) could see right through him. Rude would have been a good little Turk and read the file and known what he was getting himself into. Reno hadn't.

So instead of hating him, Reno pushed himself off the counter. And he stalked over and he grabbed Rude's cigarettes and he lit one for himself.

"Okay Rude."

"Okay?" He arched an eyebrow behind his sunglasses.

"Okay." Reno grumbled.

"Name, or accusation?" Rude asked, after a long moment.

"Yes." Reno returned, sinking onto the dusty sofa with his stolen cigarette. He stared at Rude, as if challenging him, as if daring him to say something about the state of him.

To his credit, Rude didn't pry. He pulled his bag into the empty bedroom, closed the door behind him.

Reno glared at the empty door like it had somehow offended him. And then the front door, like he could blame it for unlocking and letting the intruder into his life. The shards of glass on the floor. It was all their fault, this apartment, this dark standard Shinra issue mess had conspired against him to let a stranger in. Let someone else into his life.

Reno swore at the window and yanked the curtain shut. The glass was broken, so he drank from the bottle. It was bitter and it burned down his throat and he remembered he hadn't eaten and no wonder the world was wavering back and forth and back and forth like that bridge they had once made of pipes and net. Vegas had wanted to use it to climb to the upper plates. Reno had gotten scared, he had worried about their father, home drunk on the sofa he had taken them to steal from a seedy motel courtyard. Reno remembered hanging off the sofa while they pulled it into the back of his father's pickup, riding in the truck bed with Vegas looking out into the night.

Like the world was vast and endless.

Like one day they would see the sky.

But the world was strange and while it was vast, it felt so, so small. Enclosed in this musty apartment, tied up by the walls and the rattle of the air conditioner. Even the sky seemed too close, pressing down on him and making the world smaller and smaller. Until it was just him and his empty heart and his memories.

And smoke and too many earrings and dark sunglasses. A profile dented by a once broken nose, calloused, bruised knuckles.

Reno made a face. So what if his new partner was hot? Didn't mean Reno had to like it. Or him. He didn't have to like anyone. Just had to do his job. After all, what was a Turk but their job?

But the kitchen was empty and the world was small, and so Reno drank.


End file.
